This Week in Poop Part 13: There Will Be Poop

• THE SPRINKLE BRIGADE: One day some sensitive (and maladjusted, one assumes) artistes got together and decided it would be a good idea to devote their lives to finding dog poop in the street and decorating it with plastic army men, toy horsies, etc. In other societies, or in simpler times, their bizarre hobby would have earned them an all-expense-paid trip to the Bedlam Club Med. However, oddly enough, their calling has found its niche; this last December, the guerrilla pooch plop aficionados had a show at the Riviera Gallery in NYC, which was swarmed by flocks of poo-starved coprophelial sculpture enthusiasts. They have also published their first book, for those of you whose parlors need only a dog poo art coffee table book to be ready for its Metropolitan Home cover shoot. We find their work to be a scathing commentary on the Bush administration, in that they've discovered a way to dress up poop and sell it to the public.
• HERE, HAVE SOME POO CAKE: Last month in Cardiff, UK ("This Week in Poop" regulars will recognize that the Queen's realm has an abnormal propensity to generate poo news of note), a customer bought a chocolate cake at a pizzeria. Noting its odd aroma and its nutty palate, the suspicious cake eater brought baked confection to local health authorities who discovered that the shop's proprietors had rudely sprinkled human poo on the otherwise lovely gateaux. Although a cursory glance through chocolate cake recipes offered by Epicurious make no mention of this innovative ingredient, we can totally picture Martha providing some, um, organic frosting to a cake before sending it to Rachel Ray with her compliments.
• ARE YOU GOING TO BE IN THERE MUCH LONGER? Two years ago, Pam Babcock of Wichita decided she didn't want to leave her bathroom. In the intervening years, her enabling boyfriend brought her food, water and clothing making her self-imposed crapper exile possible. Unfortch, having spent much of that time sitting on the throne, the classy bitch's ass melded to the seat. When paramedics where called after she became disoriented, the toilet/woman hybrid had to be wheeled into the hospital intact, whereupon a team of expert surgeons extracted the seat from her ass. Ms. Babcock is currently indisposed in hospital. No word yet as to whether she intends to return to her tiled realm, but our advice to her boyfriend is to use the loo while it's available. And while he's in there, it wouldn't hurt to burn a match or two.
• HAVE YOURSELF A POOPY LITTLE CHRISTMAS: On Christmas eve, as much of the world was preparing to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, an old geezer by the name of Robert Schoff took a stroll out to his septic tank to find the source of a clog. Unfortch, he lost his balance and fell into the opening, getting stuck. His wife alleges that she noticed his feet kicking in the air about an hour later, then promptly called the sheriff's department who rescued the unfortunate sap. But we secretly suspect she watched as it happened, giggling at the kitchen window as she sipped her eggnog delighted by her husband's scatological misfortune. We further suspect she used up several rolls of film on snapshots of that particular Kodak moment before alerting authorities. That'll learn him for giving her a chia pet last year.
• THE WISCONSIN LAUNDRY POOPER: Ronnie Ballard, a totally well-adjusted citizen of Madison, Wisconsin, has issues with his neighbors. So rather than buying a gun and pumping their fannies full of lead, he opted to express his frustrations by embarking on an inter-active conceptual art piece. Mr. Ballard pooped in his neighbors' laundry. He pooped in their shoes. He pooped in their hallways. Unfortch (not many "This Week in Poop" stories are fortunate, are they?) he was caught. In the highly entertaining criminal complaint posted on The Smoking Gun, one object of his targeted poop campaign (a retarded woman by the name of Felicia Walton), proclaimed that she "had not given" Mr. Ballard "permission to defecate in her Reeboks, and was therefore disturbed." While we're disturbed by the notion that Ms. Walton can conceive of a circumstance when such permission would be forthcoming, we are delighted by the judge's instructions to Mr. Ballard to henceforth "only defecate in toilets."
• THE SQUAT TOILETS OF BEIJING: China has poop issues. They make Olympic souvenirs out of panda poop. They have recently passed an ordinance disallowing food vendors to operate in public toilets. Renegade future breakaway nation Taiwan has a popular poo-themed restaurant chain. Their relationship with poop differs from ours, just as their willingness to see a labrador as a potential entree. You see, the Chinese poop standing up. Rather, most public toilets are "squat toilets" with no seats. And when the International Olympic Committee discovered that many of the thousands of public facilities being built to accommodate the games were of the "squat" variety, Beijing was forced to race against time to replace them with sitting models. We westerners are culturally adverse to the squat-like-a-defensive-lineman loaf-pinching method, rather we prefer to sit whilst dropping the kids off at the pool. Just ask Pam Babcock.
• WELCOME TO POO LAKE: There is a neighborhood in Baghdad in which mansions are strewn hither and yon; it was once the enclave of Hussein's inner circle. Now, however, with the nearby presence of US troops, many displaced Iraqis have made these abandoned palaces their home. Unfortch (again with the "unfortch!") the sewer system has long been defunct. So this erstwhile playground of the rich and murderous, transformed by rivers of blood as the war broke out, finds itself transformed yet again by rivers of poop. And although the advancing shores of what the jarheads laughingly call "Poo Lake" are of some concern, the new residents take solace in the fact that few suicide bombers will venture there. In Iraq, poop equals peace. Isn't that right, Mr. Cheney?
• AMBER WAVES OF POOP: Livestock farmers across this glorious nation of ours have taken to feeding poop to their animals. Chicken poop gets fed to cattle, cow poop to pigs, pig poop to chickens, which in turn get turned into McNuggets for your delectable consumption. In fact, to cite just one example, JP Fontenot (VA Polytech/Animal Poultry Science) determined that 2 million tons of chicken splat is served to our beef cattle annually, whose diets now consist of nearly %70 poultry waste. This bold new science is being exported by the UN, touting the use of "recycled animal waste" in livestock feed. Dig into that McWhopper!